EVERYBODY’S SCALIN’ – AXIALFEST BADLANDS Pics and Video
Now that the dust has settled literally and figuratively of Axialfest Badlands and I am no longer in a zombie like state due to the medication post-surgery, let us go over the event!
I left the house early Thursday morning, for me it is about a two-hour ride and luckily Brian Already had the booth set up and ready to rock. Normally the cruise down vendor row in a vehicle is frustrating, but due to COVID-19 there were a ton of vendors that were unable to attend the event unfortunately but made getting too the booth quite easy. The Badlands off-road park also has an on-site campground for well, on site camping. lol. Once the event officially started it felt great to be back doing what we love doing, getting to meet new people, as well as seeing old friends and playing with tiny trucks.
Giving our worlds current state of craziness, lots of people have been unable to get out on the trails and get some good RC time in other than what they may have in the backyard. You can only talk to your significant other so much about RC before they start to go crazy, getting out and interacting with people is a part of the hobby. I can tell you this, by the look on every single person’s face the day I was there, people were ready to play!
When events go more than one day, the first day is usually a whatever day with minimal structured events. And only being able to be there for one day I hit the trails as soon as I could to make every moment count. The trails for AxialFest were set back a little ways from the actual vendor row/campground, there was a shuttle available but I wanted to test Blue Beauty A.k.a the Blue SCX10 III Jeep Because it hasn’t had a real good trail run since it’s makeover from RC4WD. Following the trails through the woods to get to the actual quarry bowl area was a little hard to follow but not horrible, just had to pay attention a little more than normal. The terrain however through the woods was fantastic, tons of ruts, dips, Hill climb’s, scale trails, and the occasional mud bog here and there. Hands-down my favorite spot of Axial’s first Badlands was the Quarry bowl. For me they could have held the entire event just in that location and I would have been perfectly Content. The mixture of sand, dirt And loose rock made some sick looking powder. The rock formations themselves were out of a Bob Ross painting, lots of flagstone and sandstone that has been baked in the sun for centuries to perfection. There was a murky looking little pond in the middle of the quarry bowl but honestly, I did not want to smell that when It got turned up from the rigs, so I did not really journey there.
Even though I did not get to do any of the structured events I still managed to have a blast on the trails. Getting together with a bunch of people from the local crawler club I’m a member of and a few other associating ones is always a fun time and top that off with getting to run with CCXRC and a few others I follow on Instagram was icing on the cake. Too long has the West Coast and East Coast dominated main events like AxialFest and so on. Finally, The Midwest has a major annual crawling event and we no longer must live vicariously through other social medias to get the event experience. The entire crew over at Axial and Horizon Hobbies really busted their butts to make this happen and we thank you all for your hard work!
The unofficial night run was my wrap up of the day, Still having a two-hour ride home, I almost ducked out. But then I saw everybody getting their rigs ready to go out and play in the dark and I figured why not? I was kind of already in a let’s see how far I can push this battery mode anyways. Just like every event I go to the MaxAmps batteries I brought performed magnificently. Then I figured since my batteries last so long maybe I should see how long I can get the Capra to last while full sending it off all the cliffs at the quarry bowl! Only broke a Rod end and did not even notice till I got it back to the car.
Axial Fest Badlands brought out a whole wave of emotions for me. At first I was going all three days, then my yearly June accident required me to have surgery and was going to miss the entire event. And seriously I looked it up I get hurt every June for some reason. But then I made the decision to at least attend one day of the event and I’m happy I was able to experience AxialFest Badlands even if it was for one day.
Have a great weekend everybody And Keep Scalin!
